Did you see that? Or, did you hear it as I used my lungs just now? Didja? Didja? Why yes, my friends did all get up to have a smoke and what did I do? Oh, just reject their offer to join them. How’s that for commitment, huh? You can offer that well done cookie any time now.

Of course this does now mean I am that boring person, sat alone to keep the coats and bags company. Oh, the things I do for health. Everyone else can go off an a little adventure, a little trip one might say. Whilst I, the more boring of the human representatives, am left with their possessions. Not as a gift, no, but a karmic bitchslap in the face for being the healthy one.

I’ve rejected peoples’ offers before but given this happened just as I was opening up this webpage I felt it particularly necessary to note now. Hopefully also to butter you up on the fact I bought a pack of ciggies last night. It was Bingo, it was tiring and I had work to do. And yet, couldn’t get past the halfway point of the stick. The satisfaction of a clear judgement does leave one feeling nicely proud and self-satisfied, almost self-satisfied enough to start a blog about it. Of course I am now sitting here guzzling my new addiction, the sweet, bitter taste of coffee.

Thank you, valiant Coffee trees for letting us cause a holocaust of your offspring so we may enjoy harvesting their essence.

There was a time, before my wrinkles set in and my back flipped out, where I was, what we would describe as… ‘bleh-Olympics’. “They could be spending that money on better things,” I would cry from my pedestal, scoffing brand name food. “It causes unnecessary stress for residents,” I would shout over my unnecessarily loud Music System, turned up to drown out the obnoxious cries of my neighbours. “It destroys the country side”, I would proclaim looking out my metropolitan window. But now in the age of my own city’s hosting, I feel the pang that any hipster too busy being alternative has when he sees people genuinely having fun.

Never having any predisposed association to my home country, I wasn’t unpatriotic so much as I was preparing myself for being an “Earthling” for the inevitable alien invasion. It does evoke a sigh to see so many people enjoying their contentious attitudes against something as internationally sporting as the Olympics. To be honest, I think we’re all just jealous that we can’t live in the Olympic Village which must just be the greatest orgy of hormonal, perfectly chiseled young athletes that this planet has to offer.

I’ve never felt more British than when I came to Heidelberg. For me, I wasn’t just in Heidelberg, I was in Germany, a different country from my own. Suddenly I was aware of what cultures thought of my own and which idealistic planes we met upon and those which we differed. But thankfully, as linguistic and cultural comparisons dwindled, this little town stopped being an object of its own and became home. There must be a transitory period, different for all, where a place stops being a novelty, and becomes truly a home. There’s home and then there’s home. Heidelberg for a long time was the former, a place I felt safe, rested and happy in, but it was still something other. Now, in the final few weeks, it feels as if it’s become somewhere I could spend the rest of my life, I feel as I imagine I would one year into a new city or job, where finally your place is found and you can see its future stretch before you. A place of true home-grown independence, and a place of home to return to in the near future. I think nothing of speaking German now, given last year I didn’t even know what “what” was “was” in German.

But as Marina said, it’s always good to get a little German in me. Just tell me his name and I’ll happily oblige.

Burning up the fuse and having nothing to lose, we’ve taken to the sunlight like masters. Gone are the huddleberg nights of snow and sleet. Beautiful under the frost of winter, Heidelberg practically glows under the sun of the oncoming summer breath. Being British, I’m surprised I’ve been able to contain myself, more than two days of sunshine is a gift from the gods. I jest. Gods don’t give gifts.

Case in point, today is now raining.

It’s been an interesting week, the middle dip delved slightly into stodgy complacency, but the book-ends have proven to be fantastic. Whilst Student Finance seems to have decided that Erasmus students now get one loan instalment less than they first said, financial fiascos are abound, there’s a hopeful horizon where this should get sorted soon. Still waiting for Internet I have taken to living in the Mensa, my darling little computer tablet practically joined to my hip. Last night was dazzling Deanne’s birthday, involving many a cockvodka shot and horrendously expensive red bull mixers, I don’t know what’s so special about August, but with so many people being born 9months since, I guess Summer Loving is more than just a name. And a horrifically catchy song.

Last night, because we’re cool and y’know, you can’t spend every night being the stuff of legends whilst simultaneously giving everyone around you orgasms (Or at least, I can’t, my apologies to anyone who can that I’ve just offended) we played Trivial Pursuit in the kitchen. Please note, this was German Trivial pursuit, and it was in the presence of vast quantities of alcohol… and Italians ü (smiley face)

This was all well and good until there was a rap-tap-tap on the door and in strode in all his blue-belted glory, the campus warden. Before the games even began, they were at risk of extermination thanks to this violent brute, wielding his torch so as to shine a light on the horror that is having fun. He gave us a choice, verily he did. Either whoever was responsible for this “party” left the room, or we were all to be removed. It’s important you are aware that by this point, we were still all eating dinner. Thankfully, Italian Giulio leapt to the rescue claiming authority, stating that this wasn’t a party and that of course we would tidy up afterwards, like all lovely foreigners.

A statement punctuated by a group throwing themselves into the door and beating a rhythm into it. “Hey, Where’s the party?!” hardly helping our argument.

Well hi there! I’m your friendly day-to-day sleep diary for the boy who can’t grow a moustache, Laurence! Here are the hours Laurence slept over the past 7 days.

Thursday: 3am-10am.

Friday: 5am-1pm.

Saturday: 11pm-2am.

Sunday: 8am-1pm. 8pm-12am.

Monday: 6am-2pm.

Tuesday: 7am-1pm.

Wednesday: 7am-3pm.

YAY! I’m getting the average amount of hours sleep a night! This has never happened to me. What’s that? Oh fuck. So yes, it would appear that I have somehow become dislodged. Far from my usual insomniac horror life which normally encompasses 2-3hours sleep at best, I am sleeping a rather healthy amount but all at the wrong time. I haven’t seen the morning on the right side of my sleeping pattern for a very long time. This is partly impeded by the fact that my earliest seminar is at 2pm, meaning that should I want to stay up all night, I can.

However, night-time me is a rather scary me. What used to be a nocturnal creative, who’d watch the sunrise and write over-embellished poems about sunglasses killing people, I have become someone who reads the same page 15 times in a row, stares at the blank wall and ends up going online to look up Steampunk gadgets. The latter being an odd obsession of mine that I’ve had for many years but never told the family for fear of ridicule. This is a dangerous, dangerous place to be in, ohhh yes! I also fear that the Facebook logo might actually get burned into my laptop plasma for being on so much.

In other words, this is in fact the same old healthy insomnia I’ve always had, but because I have nothing to get up in the morning for, it goes by unchallenged. I fail to function at the speed wanted, and end up making odd grumbling sounds, I am not sleeping, but rather crashing… for extended periods of time. Yes, I am my laptop.

Ok, so there’s the English department, fairly simple, nice looking building. Unsurprisingly, there’s a library, or bibliotech. Inside which is a fairly ordinary room, a whole wall full of DVDs from full series of The Sopranos to Mr Bean, newspapers, books, novels, comics. But off to the other side, almost hidden from view is a spiral staircase that winds downward, leading you underground into an arched cavern of a room, filled to the brim with books, ancient and modern. Calling from the pages are the smells of worded history and scribbled ideas. With desks to work at and little alcoves to crawl into, this may become my new home.

It lacks the grandiose and beauty of the elegant, museum-like main library, whose marble staircases and painted cathedral-esque ceilings attract more wonder than comfort, but is filled with potential and a quaint excitement of possibilities.

In other news, to help with my reading, I decided to buy volume 1 of the Naruto manga series, a book I know so well that reading in German should be a doddle. Right? What’s that? Direct German translations of Japanese? Hmm.